The Girl on the Train

Part One:

Boy Meets Girl

A fonte puro pura defluit aqua

"Because what's worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?"

― James Patterson

Raccoon City, 1998

Somewhere between the time he'd left the house and the time he'd left for the first day on the job, he'd stopped at a place called Rosemary's. Rosemary's was a small one room salon on the corner of west shit street and nowheresville. It was run by a woman who smelled of cigarettes and summer sunshine and scotch. It was a heady combination to a kid just fresh out of the police academy and looking to piss off his father.

The old man had his days where he was, at best, tolerable. Today had not been that day.

He'd pointed his finger at his second born son and declared, "You understand me Leon Scott Kennedy, you will rue the day you decided to try your hand at rebellion. This will bite you in the ass before it is done, you can make bank on that."

The oldest son, Leon's brother Tate, had followed the path of least resistance and headed off to law school to be another cog in the wheel. Leon, always the outcast and sometimes the nerd, had gotten tired of being the second rung on the ladder of legacy to his father, so he'd said "fuck it" to a life of convention and joined the police academy. At first, the old man had been irate.

But, after further reflection, he decided a son who was on the other side of the wheels of justice meant political success for the Kennedy name and so he'd gotten behind the idea. He'd made a few calls, greased a few palms, and lined up the perfect job for his second banana son to stream line his way to police chief and seal his fate forever as the legal finger in a bigger pie of justice that his father was trying to cultivate.

Leon was already on a very narrow tightrope with the old man to start with. He was a "god-damn hippie, tree hugging, free love endorsing, second amendment hating liberal" in a family of conservative republicans. He wasn't, he was all about the second amendment, but the rest was probably too. Leon was all about the free love.

He figured, why the fuck not? In a world where no girl had ever really sniffed around his dick, why not back the idea of free dick love for everyone? Somebody out there deserved to get laid man. If it wasn't him, it should be somebody.

He'd come down the stairs one morning, in his baggy academy sweatshirt and jeans, just prior to leaving for training, with his ponytail happily trailing down his neck and his father had nearly had a stroke. His son, HIS SON had girl hair. "Do you see this Muriel!?" He yelled at his wife, who at 8 a.m. was already on her second coffee cup liberally laced with Irish. "Your son is a god-damn hippie!"

Tate, his perfect brother, had been home from law school and sitting at the table in the palatial Virginia estate that always made Leon feel like he was walking through the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. Tate had all the looks in the Kennedy family. He was six foot two and muscular. He was dark haired and blue eyed and charming. Girls fell over themselves trying to get close to him. Tate was twenty four and already engaged to a girl with two last names like a proper Kennedy. She was ugly, skinny, and came from money as old as the hills.

Again, he was the golden boy.

Tate looked at him and laughed, "Relax Dad, seriously. He's rebelling. That's what the nerdy kids do after highschool."

Leon, all skinny legs and awkward angles, had hunkered down in his sweatshirt and scowled. He'd run out the front door as fast he could to meet up with his girlfriend. Maggie…MAGGIE. She was everything that mattered. And she loved his hair. Loved it.

They'd spent the afternoon before he left making holding each other. Such good kids, they didn't do more than closed mouth kissing and holding hands. They'd hug and lay together and snuggle. She'd wanted to go all the way of course that day. But he wanted to marry her first. She cupped his face and said, "You know your Daddy will never let you marry me."

She was right of course. She was poor and didn't have anything but his heart. It turned out that wasn't ever going to be enough for the Kennedy name. So, she'd broken his heart instead and ran away to leave him aching in the street.

He'd honestly thought he'd die from the pain of it. He'd gone into the academy the next day mourning her like she'd died. It pushed him harder and faster to do the job and thrive at it. The skinny little hippie went into the police academy and burst out of his cocoon. He'd gone in a child and come out a man.

The old man had nearly shit a brick when he told him he wasn't going to take the job he'd lined up. The call had come out across the radio while he'd been at the academy, Raccoon City – Umbrella's burgeoning baby, was seeking qualified police presence to help patrol and protect the city. The recent crime wave meant a stronger police force.

Here, he thought wildly, my chance to be the hero. My chance to prove I'm a man.

He'd taken the job.

His father went apoplectic. He went apeshit. He swore he would disown his younger son if he didn't decline the job. Looking back on it, Leon figured the old man probably knew something was rotten in Raccoon City. He had his fingers in more pies than a baker. He knew something was wrong.

And he'd let his son go anyway. The old man always knew how best to punish his children. He probably figured anyone who went against him, offspring included, deserved what they got.

So, he'd gone into Rosemary's to cut off the hippie hair and look more like a respectable police officer. He was in his R.P.D. uniform, nervous like a prom date, and utterly adorable. Rosemary had taken one look at him and said, "Nope. I'm not cutting all that beautiful hair off."

She'd given him the haircut. THE HAIRCUT. He'd stared at it, curious if he could rock it, and she'd said, "Honey…that face…you own this haircut. Don't have to go army short to prove you're a serious cop, darlin. Prove that through your actions, not your looks."

Rosemary was the wisest woman he'd ever met. She was also talkative and apparently a helluva hairstylist. But she also made him late on his first day on the job.

He'd eaten up the distance between her shop and the highway that led to the 109 into Raccoon City at a furious pace. His apartment was still filled with unopened boxes, he'd lost his keys twice that day trying to get moved in, and he'd spent twenty minutes trying to find his badge. It was a series of minor things that had resulted in being in a great deal of a hurry.

He whipped the Jeep onto the highway with a vengeance that was palpable. He shifted gears with a personal fury, completely unaware that he was the only car on the road. If he'd been less inclined to hurry, he'd have noticed it. If he'd have been listening to the radio and not a cassette tape, he'd have heard about it. If he'd have lost his keys and not been able to find them, he'd have been trapped in his apartment fifteen miles outside of Raccoon and he'd have never known what waited there.

He rocketed past the sign welcoming him to the city and straight into the worst night of his life. The woman in the road brought his Jeep to a rolling stop. He hesitated, curious, and glanced around while his radio blared Aerosmith at full volume. He adjusted the volume and idled in the street.

Seeing no hope for it, he climbed from the Jeep and moved to check on the woman lying there. She was on her face and twitching. Drunk? What? He knelt beside her and touched her shoulder. She turned, groaning, and she was as dead as anything he'd ever seen in his life. She was dead.

Dead? How was that even possible?

She took a lunge for his face and he panicked, falling back on his ass on the road. The dead woman crawled on top of him, moaning, bleeding and gurgling. So that was the first time Leon Kennedy had a woman on top of him moaning. It left something to be desired for what came next.

He shouted, grabbing her shoulders to push her away from him. She lunged, snapping her jaws at his throat. She had fish eyes, filmed and colorless. He heard the sounds of shuffling feet, heard the moaning, and started to see the faces in the darkness around him.

He felt the fear lance into his belly and steal his reason. He wanted to panic. He wanted to leap in his Jeep and drive way screaming like a girl. He pushed the snarling, chomping dead woman off of him and rolled to his feet. At least he'd been wise enough to grab his police issue Beretta from the Jeep before he'd climbed out.

He turned the gun on the advancing horde of people…no…not people. Not people. Dead people? No..zombies. ZOMBIES.

"Zombies?" It sounded very loud in the quiet darkness and sort of…squeaky. Faced with the undead for the first time, the great hero Leon Kennedy hadn't started kick boxing and whipping asses…oh no. He'd panicked, shouted, and squeaked in fear.

He backed down an alleyway, separated from his Jeep now by at least ten zombies. Panicked, he kept backing up, and didn't realized he'd backed right into another one. It grabbed him, moaning, and sunk its teeth into the leather strap of his shoulder holster. It saved him from a bite to the shoulder that would have killed him.

Proof, of course, that guns did indeed save lives. Somewhere, his father was thrilled. Leon was somewhat less amused. He stumbled and the zombie stayed on him trying to chew through his holster. He elbowed it in the stomach and it didn't give a shit, it kept on trying to eat him.

"Hey! Over here!" A voice shouted, drawing attention to it.

The zombie stopped chewing and looked up, Leon threw his body weight against it and shoved it off him. The voice yelled again, "Get down!"

He did, just like that. He ducked. A knife whistled by his ear as he dropped to one knee on the ground. He blinked, watching it spin, and it struck hilt deep into the forehead of the zombie. The thing was tossed back and hit the dumpster with a clang of metal.

A girl came running at him through the darkness. She grabbed his arm to help him stand. He blinked at her, still in shock. She grabbed the hilt of her knife, put a booted foot against the chest of the dead zombie, and jerked it clean. The moaning in the street was louder and closer.

She grabbed him by his breastplate and jerked at him. "Stop staring at me and RUN!"

He obeyed and they started running. She grabbed his hand and held it, leading him at a full run through the alleyway until they came out the other side. They raced across the street and were blocked by nearly a hundred shambling corpses.

"Holy fuck," She whispered it, glancing around.

Leon, finally figuring out how to use his brain again, gestured to a police cruiser not far away with its lights flashing. It was casting red and blue shadows all over the ground and the walls around it. They didn't hesitate, they hurried toward it. The person inside was missing but the keys were still in the ignition.

He leapt behind the wheel and cranked over the engine while the girl joined him in the passenger seat. He gunned it and they leapt forward, knocking down bodies like bowling pins. The cruiser jerked, bumped, and smooshed corpses with a nearly reckless glee.

Disgusted, Leon angled them toward the police station.

The silence in the cruiser was loud.

Finally, the girl spoke, "I'm Claire. Claire Redfield. I saw the uniform, I thought…well…I'm looking for my brother Chris. He works at the station. He's S.T.A.R.S."

Leon glanced at her in the semi-darkness. A pretty thing, she was young, he was betting barely out of highschool like him. Her hair was red and sleek, drawn back into a bouncy ponytail. She wore a red leather motorcycle jacket with cut off sleeves over a black skin tight t-shirt. The black biker shorts she wore were graced up top by tiny denim cutoff shorts. The cowboy boots she wore, in good buckskin brown, were old and looked soft and pettable.

He had to admit, she was a pretty bad ass chic for somebody who looked like a dirty boy's idea of a hells angel. She glanced at him, lifted a brow, and said, "Hey handsome, how about you focus on the road for me?"

Well that was embarrassing, he mused, focusing on the road as she'd asked. "I'm Leon Kennedy. I don't know your brother, I'm sorry. This is my first day on the job."

She blinked at him, blinked again, and laughed. "Are you kidding?"

"Nope."

"Helluva way to start a new job man. My condolences."

"Thanks. Any idea what's happening here?"

"No more than you. I talk to Chris three times a week. He's my touch stone. A week went by, nothing. Two weeks, nothing. So, I came looking. Because he always calls. ALWAYS."

"Where were you?"

"College. I go to Ruegar State."

"Ah."

"I hopped on my Harley and headed out here. I figured I'd find him dick deep in some girl, ya know? But not even close! This is nuts! But I can't leave without finding him."

Leon was quiet for a long moment. Claire glanced at him again. "I know what you're thinking…"

"I doubt that."

"I'm crazy right? He's dead. That's what you're thinking."

"No, I wasn't."

"It's ok. It seems crazy based on what we've seen. But he's alive. I know it. Chris is…he's….fuck it. He's just alive. I know ok? I know."

"I believe you." And he did. She was convincing. Her faith was unshakeable.

"Where'd you learn to use a knife like that?"

She smiled and there was something touching on her face. Leon felt a little sad that he'd never felt that close to his brother…or anyone in his family for that matter. "Chris. He taught me everything he knows. Our parents died…" She was silent for long time, gathering her thoughts, "They died in car crash. I was barely seventeen. Chris got custody of me, he fought for it. He was barely twenty one. But they gave him custody of me. So…he taught me everything he knew. He put me through college. I'm not leaving him here. If he's here, I'm going to find him."

That unshakeable faith had been the first time he'd come face to face with the power of love. It was something that had stayed with him as they crawled through the sewers, as they uncovered the truth, as they were sucked deeper into the quagmire of what Umbrella was doing under that city. Through it all, Claire's belief in her brother never wavered. It was her light, her strength, and what gave her hope.

He'd met Ada beneath the city and started following her like a dog. If he hadn't, he probably would have chased after Claire a little bit. She was something. He saw her bravery, her loyalty, her skills. She was smart and sassy and spent a good deal of time giving him a general good ribbing.

They'd turned down a hallway and come face to face with their first licker together. It had nearly gutted them before they'd put it down. Claire had finished it off with a clean shot to the head.

As it lay there, in a nasty pool of its own congealing blood, she'd said, "I generally like a long tongue too…I think I'm going to need to reevaluate my feelings on that."

He'd laughed, amused despite how awful things were. They'd moved into the S.T.A.R.S. office and rooted around, looking for anything that would point them toward her brother. He knew, the moment she'd sat in that cruiser and confessed her desire to save Chris, that he'd help her. It was the only thing he could do.

They'd found enough information in the office that it was easy to believe he'd been alive, very, very shortly before that. There was even some indication he was no longer in the city. But they were in it now, they were hip deep and sinking fast. They had to see it through.

They decided to look for other survivors. They came across Sherry, who fled at first sight of them, and they had to give chase to her. She'd disappeared into the air vent….and the first battle with the trench coat Mr. X had begun.

Ugly, sexless, frightening like a pale faced demon, Mr. X had come seeking the girl and found them instead. It had decided to kill them anyway. That's what it was made to do after all; kill. They'd fought it until it had scented the girl it was chasing and left them to recover themselves.

During the battle, Leon had been knocked into a wall and burst out the other side, sliding across the floor of the office he'd landed in until he hit the desk there and came to a stop. He was still learning how to breathe again, deciding if anything was broken, when Clarie had come running in. She'd knelt beside him and checked him for injuries.

"You sure are a clumsy guy, aren't you?"

Leon Kennedy, the man who could move circles around a hundred men, had started out as a wet behind the ears, awkward, bumbling rookie cop that couldn't even really throw a punch. He'd winced as she helped him up. And that was the first moment they'd have and both of them would wonder.

She'd turned her head to smile at him and he'd turned his to look at her. They'd held eyes. She'd glanced at his mouth, he'd glanced at hers. He'd rotated just a little toward her and she'd hooked a hand into his uniform. Oh, he thought blankly, derp.

She'd closed her eyes and leaned up. Ah, he thought, that's what she wanted. He'd leaned down and kissed her. Soft, gentle, smooth; it was possibly the sweetest kiss anyone had ever given him. They'd drawn apart, both blushing.

Claire had coughed a little and moved out from under his arm. "You ok to stand on your own?"

"Uh…yeah. Yeah."

"Cool."

They looked at each other again. She took a step toward him, he opened his mouth to say something flirty and clever, or more than likely awful and corny, and the sound of Sherry in those vents had pulled their focus.

And that had been it, their first moment of interest in each other.

The moment the train burst free of the tunnel, sunlight had started to break through the cloudy sky. It was morning. Morning had fallen after the longest night. The night that knew no end. The night that would haunt them forever.

The girl and the boy on the train watched the sun rise, gold and orange. It was a beautiful thing: a promise when there'd been no hope. Bleeding, dirty, tired, hungry and afraid, they'd finally fled the necropolis that had tried to destroy them. They'd uncovered horrors and conspiracy, they'd fought the darkness and survived. And they'd done it together.

On a blanket, the little girl they'd rescued snored softly. She was filthy and small and sweet. And sound asleep. They'd saved her and it was their greatest victory.

Leon Kennedy guided the train to safety and the sun reflected brilliant in the husky blue of his eyes. The dirt on his face defined it and made it seem older than it had twenty four hours before. He couldn't figure out why anything as mundane going back to normal life scared him so much. He only knew that tonight, when the sun set, he'd have to sleep alone. The idea terrified him.

Claire Redfield stood beside him. She was splattered in old blood and had a bruise on her face that was already turning yellow. Her red hair was sticking up in places and she had the faint odor of acrid smoke about her from the fire they'd traversed together.

Leon set the autopilot on the train and ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his face. It was sticky and itchy with dried blood and sweat. It peeled back like the layer of an onion and settled against his scalp, leaving his handsome face unadorned.

She turned toward him and smiled. "Helluva night, handsome."

"Helluva night." He smiled back and rolled his shoulders. "I couldn't have done it without you. You saved my life back there against that thing."

Birkin. The image of his mutated form would haunt them both forever.

"Ditto. I thought I was a goner against Mr. X."

"Mr. X…what a name."

"It seemed to fit."

"It fits for sure."

Claire coughed a little as the silence drew out between them. "What now?"

Leon shrugged, at a loss. "Honestly? I think we get the information we have to the right people and let them handle it."

"Who's the right people though?"

"Good question."

She turned toward him. "Leon…"

He tilted his head, studying her. The sun flickered over her face, showing him the girl beneath the dirt. She was something. A fighter, a survivor. She had the bravery of a hundred men and the humor of a frat buddy. He only knew one thing about her: he wanted her in his life.

She took his hand and turned it. They slid those hands together and held.

She knew she could tug him in toward her and kiss him. She knew he'd kiss her back. She knew once they did, they'd probably never stop kissing. And she didn't have time for romance.

She had to find her brother.

So..she stayed right there as the train steered them to safety and she simply held his hand.

The moment came when she could choose him, escape with him, run with him...and she chose to chase her brother instead.

And Leon Kennedy?

He stayed behind to protect her, to protect that little girl they'd rescued together, and make sure at least one of them escaped the chains that would bind them both after Raccoon City.

A/N: If you think you've read this, you might have. I used it in Absolution for Claire's chapter. This is her chapter, broken down and reworked a little into a short story of it's own. If you want to know what fills in the blanks, you can read Absolution. But as with alot of my works, you don't have to follow this little tale.